Owl story IV

May 15, 2010 at 5:43 pm | Posted in Wildlife | Leave a comment

After a couple of days without a clear sighting, we found not just one but two owlets,  together in a tall hazel just outside the garden. It seemed like there might be two but we couldn’t be certain until we saw them together.

At first they were some distance apart but later we found them huddled together. Over the following days they moved around the same groups of small trees – with the adults also going back and forward between them and the other groups of trees across the valley.  When I first found the owlet on the bench we worried because he didn’t move for a couple of hours – but this is obviously how they protect themselves. They just stay more or less in the same place, at least during the day, and the adults check on them periodically and presumably feed them as well.

Each morning it was a case of checking if they were both there. They are quite distinct: one is significantly bigger and seemed to have more adult feathers showing, the other looks like Uncle Fester in the Adam ‘s Family-  both had grown a lot in just a week!

Owl story III

May 8, 2010 at 5:22 pm | Posted in Wildlife | Leave a comment

After walking the dogs first thing, I saw Izzy, the spaniel, barking at something on the bench near the back door. When I got there I found a young owl hunched up on the back of the seat – totally motionless and looking rather bedraggled.  It stayed there most of the morning, before eventually scampering (flying is not the right word) across the garden to the bushes running down the side of the garden.

Later that that evening, we watched through binoculars as he sat in the trees at the end of the garden, while one of the  adults flew back and forth around him, calling as well.

The next morning he had moved slightly into a large hazel tree a bit below our fence.

Owl story II

May 6, 2010 at 11:17 pm | Posted in Wildlife | Leave a comment

We saw the owls fairly regularly over the next few weeks.

In the first week of May I got an excellent view  of the other owl late afternoon, just sitting in the sycamore above the pond

We had also heard chirping noise from the behind the panel in the barn but when these stopped we started to give up hope of there being a successful nest.

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